August 20, 2009
The group would potentially draw on the troops and resources of both the Australian and New Zealand governments, although the details are yet to be worked out.
Mr Rudd and his New Zealand counterpart John Key announced the plan on Thursday at Canberra's Parliament House, one of several stops in Mr Key's five-day Australian tour.
"We're both willing to explore the possibility of forming over time, an ANZAC contingent ... which might be commonly deployed to various security environments in the future," Mr Rudd told reporters.
"We believe given the bonds that already exist between our armed forces, their common training, the compatibility of so much of their equipment (that) this is actually a useful thing for us to do together."
He said the defence chiefs of both countries would to work on the detail.
"The precise operational scope of any such agreement would be properly crafted by our respective defence chiefs," Mr Rudd said.
While both PMs agree the idea is a good one, they have stressed it is a long way from being realised.
"There are going to be defence and security scenarios in the future where it's going to make a lot of sense for both of us to quickly and jointly deploy," Mr Rudd said.
"And therefore, why not look through the possibilities to how we can institutionalise this between us?
